The attending went over to the bedside and put her hand on Chantal’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, but—”

“Nooooo . . .” Chantal shook her head on the thin pillow. “No, no, no . . .”

“—we didn’t find a heartbeat. I’m afraid you’ve lost the pregnancy.”

Chantal exploded with tears, and the doctor said some more things about follow-up appointments, and Lane tried to keep track of everything.

Okay, good, there was going to be paperwork with notes on what needed to be done next.

After the doctor left, Lane took out his phone. When he’d moved up to Manhattan—or fled Charlemont, was more like it—he hadn’t erased any of his Kentucky contacts.

When he found what he was looking for, he triggered a call.

A female answered tersely on the third ring. “Well, this is a surprise, Lane.”

He took a deep breath. Chantal’s best friend hated him, and he wasn’t fond of her, either. But that was hardly important. “Listen, I need you to come down to the ER at University Hospital. . . .”

After Lizzie got back to Easterly, she ended up in Chantal’s old bathroom again—but this time, she meant to go there as opposed to her just taking advantage of the nearest loo.

As she started to go through the cabinets, drawers, and shelves, she couldn’t believe what she was looking for. Then again, she hadn’t been about to ask a state policeman in his squad car to pull in to a Rite Aid and hang out while she bought herself a pregnancy test.

Especially not with Sutton Smythe in the backseat.

“Jeez, talk about well-stocked,” she muttered as she found enough Q-tips to clean the ears of an entire junior high school. “Zombie apocalypse comes and we’re going to be stinking beautiful.”

There were backup bars of fancy soap and pots of facial creams with French labels and bags of cotton balls. Under the sinks, she found lineups of shampoos and conditioners, and hair dryers and curling wands and straighteners. Behind the mirrors, there were prescription pills and laxatives and astringents.

She had assumed her best chance of finding something like a Clearblue or a First Response or whatever the damn things were called would be in here. Certainly, the woman had recently wondered whether or not she could be pregnant.

But no. Nada.

“Crap.”

As Lizzie shut the double doors under the basin on the left, she decided she needed to woman up, get in her truck, and go out herself.

Pivoting away, she headed for the exit—and decided to check the tall closet by the shower on a whim.

Holy terrycloth, she thought as she got a gander of the stacks of towels. “Of course. More than you’d have in an NFL locker room, except in shades of pink—oh, bingo.”

In a wicker basket by the folded washcloths, she found what she was looking for, along with a bunch of UTI tests and Monistat boxes.

She wasn’t taking the damn thing in this bathroom, however.

Tucking the Clearblue box in the folds of her black dress, she hustled down to her and Lane’s room and closed herself in. Her first inclination was to tell Lane what she was doing, but what if she was wrong and this was just the flu? Or stress? She would not only feel like a fool, she would regret getting him worked up over nothing.

Besides, she had no clue whether he’d be excited or if this would be more bad news on top of everything else that was going on: They had never talked about kids, either the having or the wanting.

Hell, she wasn’t even sure how she felt about being pregnant—well, not that she wouldn’t have the baby if she were—

“Okaaaaay,” she said out loud. “Let’s just get off the plank, shall we.”

Marching herself into her own bath, she read the directions, broke out one of the two tests, and peeled the thing of its wrapper. After doing the duty on the toilet—and managing to not pee on her hand, which, as far as she was concerned, meant she was a genius—she held the end of the stick down and laid the test on the counter between the two sinks.

Her heart pounded against her ribs like it was scared of being alone in there in the dark.

Checking her watch, she tried not to stand over the thing. Passed a little time folding a damp towel. Flushed a stink bug down the loo.

Oddly, the sight of her toothbrush standing up next to Lane’s in a sterling-silver cup caught her eye and held it. His was red. Hers was green. Both were Oral-B. Over a little farther, her hairbrush was next to his shaver, and his can of shaving cream was by her bar of Clinique facial soap. A hand towel they had both used was wadded up and left where it had been thrown by whoever had taken it off the rack.

It was all so good to see, even though it was a little messy: The daily-existence chaos was evidence that their lives were enmeshed.

Bracing herself, Lizzie glanced at the test.

When she saw the plus sign, she started to smile. Oh, my God. OhmyGod.

Mother, she thought. She was going to be—

Abruptly, she remembered Chantal standing in front of the Bradford family crypt, blood down the inside of her legs. It seemed like a bizarre twist of fate that she should be finding out she was pregnant while the other woman might well be losing her child.

What was Lane going to think about this?

Putting her hands to her face, Lizzie looked at herself in the mirror and that happy smile faded.

Shit, what was she going to say to him?

TWELVE

As Samuel T. pulled the Jaguar around to Easterly’s front entrance, Gin looked up at her family’s great house. There had to be two hundred glossy black shutters on the thing, and those clapboards that covered all four sides? If you laid them end to end, she was willing to bet it would lead you across the Big Five Bridge over into Indiana—and possibly all the way north to Chicago.

“Well?” Samuel T. murmured as he hit the brakes.

“But of course. I am home.”

She spoke absently because her mind was on other things. Especially as she shifted her stare to the second floor, to Amelia’s bedroom.

“I am going to be out of town for a few days,” she heard herself say.

“Are you? A little trip planned with the husband?”

“No.”

“Shopping, let me guess.”

She opened her door and got out. A burning headache, right between her eyes, made it difficult to focus on him. “Amelia needs to go back to Hotchkiss. She has to finish her exams.”

“Ah, yes, your daughter.” Samuel T. frowned. “She came in for the funeral, then.”

“Yes.” In fact, it had been more complicated than that. Amelia had lied and said she’d been kicked out, just so she could return home. “But she’s moving back.”

“For the summer.”

“For the rest of high school.”

Samuel T. recoiled and then glared out over the long hood of the Jag. “Did Pford refuse to pay?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Did that cheap sonofabitch say he wouldn’t cover her costs?” When Gin didn’t reply, he looked over at her. “And before you try and deny just how bad your money situation is, I’ll remind you that I’ve seen your brother’s financial disclosures as part of the divorce I’m handling for him. I know exactly what’s going on.”

“Richard didn’t say no.” Then again, she hadn’t bothered asking. “Amelia wants to be home. She wants . . . to be with her family.”

“She going to Charlemont Country Day in the fall, then?”

“Of course.”

He nodded sharply as if that were the only proper choice. “Good. Amelia’s a good kid. She looks a lot like you.”

“I’m hoping she doesn’t follow in my footsteps.”

“Me, too.” Samuel T. waved a dismissive hand. “Sorry, that came out badly.”

And yet I do not disagree, Gin thought.

“She wants to go to New York City. To work in fashion.”

“She needs a real college degree first. Then she can mess around doing artistic bullshit—assuming you and your husband can afford to feed, board, and clothe her while she’s working as an intern at Vogue. But that’s none of my business.”

Gin rested her fingertips lightly on the top of the door. Then dug them into the slot into which the window had been retracted.